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Definition of debt of honour in English:

debt of honour

noun

1A debt that is not legally recoverable, especially a sum lost in gambling.

‘Traynor negotiated the deal whereby the £1.143 million debt was settled by a £750,00 payment, leaving £110,000 standing as the ‘debt of honour’ that was never repaid.’

‘Kerr involved his solicitors to try and extract his winnings from the bookmaker, even though gambling debts are not recoverable by legal means - since 1710 they have been classed as a debt of honour and cannot be taken before a court.’

‘He then turns to Bertram Wyatt-Brown's study of Southern Honor, which explains that in the antebellum South there were two kinds of debt, the business debt and the debt of honor.’

1.1A feeling of great gratitude:

‘we owe a debt of honour to miners who have died from these terrible diseases’

‘She admits to owing a debt of honour to Mrs Beeton and even has several antique copies of Household Management in her collection of cleaning books.’

‘And the Archbishop stressed that the war's victims were owed a debt of honour by political leaders.’

‘There is no doubt that we owe them a tremendous debt of honour that we should never forget.’

‘He feels he owes a debt of honour to Brown, partly for standing aside in 1994 and partly for his stewardship of the economy since 1997.’

‘We have said before that we believe the country owes a debt of honour to them.’

‘"My own ambition is secondary to the enormous debt of honour and friendship that I owe to Alex Ferguson," says Veron.’

‘After the 1991 Gulf War a Tory MP said that the country owed British soldiers a debt of honour.’